REPORT OF UNESCO EXPERT MEETING ON - APCEIU

Soon after the launch of the Teacher Education Modules, a Pacific education symposium held in Fiji in 2001
heard that two important reasons for the failure of Pacific education systems to provide quality education to
young people in our region were the absence of a vision about what education can do for the region’s people and
the lack of ownership by Pacific peoples of their education systems due to the fact that Pacific curricula
continued to reflect the values and ideals of colonising and now globalising cultures of Europe and America
rather than Pacific cultures (Taufe’ulungaki, 2000). The school as well as the educational bureaucracy of which
it is a part continued to rely on notions of universalism and objectivity and promotes individual merit and
competitive attitudes whereas Pacific indigenous and vernacular education systems rely on specific contexts and
subjectivity and value human relationships and collective effort (Thaman, 1988; 2003). Referring to the situation
in Solomon Islands, a troubled nation at the time of the Symposium, Solomon Island academic and educator
Sanga (2000) reported that the extent to which the school in his country represented the multiple cultures of the
nation was minimal as the officially sanctioned values were those of a foreign school structure, curriculum and
teaching profession. At best, schooling in many parts of Oceania offer a few fortunate people (such as myself)
access to the modern, monetised sector; at worst it is a recipe for cultural conflicts and disasters, the destruction
of many children’s self confidence and morale, as well as the marginalisation of local and indigenous knowledge
systems of the very people and communities that send children to school. More Pacific Island educators had
come to the realisation that it was time to look to Pacific cultures for solutions to Pacific teaching and learning
problems.
Pacific cultures therefore have to be the context in which conversations about the role of the teacher in educating
for peace and sustainable development in the Pacific need to be situated and understood. It is a context in which
teachers as well as learners continuously face the conflicting demands and emphases between their formal
education and those of their home cultures; between the individualist values of schools and the marketplace and
the socially oriented cultural values of various Pacific communities (Little, 1995:778). This often results in
misunderstandings that will lead to un-peaceful and conflict-ridden relationships, and sometimes, physical
violence.
Today, the situation is worsening as the global market ideology pervades people’s lives as well as their work and
is changing even its most ardent opposers. Education is now a commodity to be sold rather than something that
is provided by governments for the common good. In our part of the world, some nations (such as New Zealand
and Australia) do not hide the fact that they need to be more proactive in marketing their educational services to
others, making issues of globalised curricula, cross cultural transfer, and appropriate learning strategies more
critical than ever. At an Asia Pacific UNESCO/GATS seminar held in Seoul in April 2005, questions were asked
about what and/or whose knowledge was being taught in schools and universities in the Asia Pacific region as
governments enthusiastically embrace market driven economies and educational development. There is also
evidence, including various UN Human Development index reports, globalisation and modernisation have
actually accentuated structural violence against the poor majorities in our region, creating structural injustices
that undermine people’s opportunities to meet basic needs including the education of their children (Toh Swee-
Hin, 2001).
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